


For When The Clock Chimes

by Austennerdita2533



Series: Sometimes Your Touch Feels Like Teeth: Bloodied By Intimacy [4]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: And what it means to them, Angst and Fluff, F/M, Happy Ending, Post 5x13 AU, Post TO finale, Some examination of time, Some travel and banter and humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 10:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15727155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austennerdita2533/pseuds/Austennerdita2533
Summary: Out of time is not where their story ended. It's where it stopped--then started all over again.





	For When The Clock Chimes

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop thinking about time and how it could affect how Klaus and Caroline would relate to both themselves and each other prior to/after his near-death in 5x13. (Near-death because in my mind he's still alive and thriving somewhere.) And this is what came out. 
> 
> *A disclaimer: the first half of this is more literary in nature and is written, therefore, in a more removed POV. I usually save that kind of experimentation for my original writing, but that's what wanted to come out. So I went with it.*
> 
> Anyway, unconventional writing choices and all, I hope you like it. Please let me know what you think.
> 
> xx Ashlee Bree

The hands of time continued to turn because they could, because they brokered no resistance from anything in physics or grimoire magic. At least not to anyone’s knowledge. 

It’s how they functioned. They existed to move, to _tock_ away in subsequence. Their only purpose was to track the moments that the rest of the world took for granted or disregarded completely. 

And so many people did: squandering each one with the flutter of an eyelash, or an exhale of the lungs that wouldn’t keep, couldn’t stay, their voices rubbing against the edge of a thought before they let the words fade into letters the mouth couldn’t spell or name out loud because it was too soon, too late, not right or so wrong. The look on someone’s face making a person swallow them all back down where they didn’t belong, and never could since the stomach refused to digest omissive lies in any shape, any form. They’d spurn back up to the surface with a rough lurch so it hurt. Scraping at silence until it stung. They’d burn the esophagus into disrepair the whole way like a warning that wouldn’t ground down or away. “ _Admit it or else, admit it or else_.” Screaming bile into blisters because the truth shouldn’t cower in corners forever, and it wouldn’t. It’d always crawl back out because time waited for nothing. And no one. 

Time wouldn’t wait for decisions to be made or listen to a voice as it begged “ _slow down, slow down; please, please, please won’t you slow down._ ” Wonderful things fluttered past in the same cadence as the awful, the sad, the loving, the wrenching, or as the missed opportunities which were impossible to reel backwards for someone who’d let them skip past like rocks already. 

People probably always would overlook these moments. Waste them, too. So few of them wanted to hear how many more _ticks_ they had left before the quality of everything in their lives diminished, or worse, ended altogether. Killing the future in ways that couldn’t be resurrected. 

After all, who could bear to tally all the seconds as they fell? As they died?

Why would anyone want to capture the Before? Catching it, wrestling it into trapped silence with thumbs, knees blackening and blueing from too much squirming on top of it merely to preserve the faint sputters of oxygen it expended. As if such a thing could be rewound or duplicated so that Before’s clockwork stores were always full of hours one could revisit with a blank slate, a new page, yet would never need to be scribbled through with chipping chalk or passed by with a feeling of what could’ve been instead. 

Only, that’s not how it worked. The past could not be rewritten. It could not be recalculated for a redo, either. 

Why would anyone try to cling to this dream when the dust from the After was bound to choke a person with its grittiness again and again regardless of the promises it’d made to keep the throat clear and dry? Free of regret. Unspoiled by grief. Untainted by all those nasty ‘if’s’ that tasted like tarred feathers on the tongue. 

Who would care to listen to each beautifully fleeting moment as it gusted away like a dandelion wish on the end of a swollen green stem? Who wanted the pleasure, the pain of cataloguing them? 

How long before each second started to sound less like a soprano note in the fabric of infinity and more like static burnt deep into eardrums? _Krshhhing_ with the noise that all middles made as they neared their endings. 

When was it wrong to count the stones of time like precious particles no one wanted to throw away? When was it right to grasp them tight, not letting go? Not giving up. Never, never surrendering to bruises or the fight for more un-lived life _._

What happened if someone didn’t? Wouldn’t. If one refused to pay out time in elapsing dividends because it was unfair, because the future currency one was already contracted was about to be stolen from out of pockets before it could be spent.

What happened, for instance, to a girl with a woefully devoted, often under appreciated heart which had been taken, broken, or disappointed one too many times to be able to forget how it felt to be denied - what ruin it wrought inside of her when something or someone left her alone again or far behind in a place where she couldn’t follow so that she was the only one who was missing out on everything she wanted? Everything she almost got, almost loved, but might not receive. 

What did it mean when she clung to each peal over her head because a part of her was terrified this was the last bell of extraordinary she was meant to hear? To want. To almost reach out and touch. To nearly have it in the palm of her hands, obscured, but lost in a way that was about to be found. Making her feel strong and certain in herself at last - in them, too - her heart open, adrenalized, embracive of the teethy edges which were to chomp through one of her deepest chambers soon, not long from now. Marking her with a brand of unapologetic readiness, of confidence she owed to the creature she was today. 

This girl didn’t need extraordinary on her own - _not all on her own -_ but she desired it with this man here before her. She knew that without a doubt now. Just as he was set to disappear. 

The only problem was this: she wanted him out there somewhere still living. Still existing like the constant he was, or came to be over these uncountable years. She needed him to stay a fragment of light that’d never fade, that’d never fall from its spot in the sky so she could see it always - with her eyes closed, soul stretched through every shadow or curve of darkness - so she could chase it with feet one day knowing he’d be there waiting for her on the other side. 

It was imperative that his coming seconds continued to stretch. Bend. Twist. Multiply. Endure.

But what happened if the hands of time stopped revolving because they intended to sweep the constant of him away for good? How did she feel to know it was nearly over between them? The end? Their last moment? This goodbye becoming the most rotten she’d ever tasted on dry lips since they still thirsted for the hope of another kiss. 

It might be the end of every possibility…

The dropping curtain….

The final eclipse…

The threads of a vanishing eternity plunging into a hole that would fray its edges like the snap of a coffin lid…

So what became of her? Of him? Of them and this nearly-something which never came fully to fruition? 

What next? What happened after the clock froze with a loud _ding_ to assault their ears _,_ catching their hearts off guard when it resounded out loud into the night with one last chime? Because if they couldn’t reverse the ding above their heads at midnight, if this fate was impossible to prevent, then how come those clock hands halted like lungs holding in a breath before a sigh?

* * *

Pssst, let me let you in on a little secret:

 

_Out of time is not where their story ended._

_It’s where it stopped—_

_then started all over again._

* * *

 Caroline loved to cycle through the city. Preferred it, really. Given the option, she always chose a spontaneous ride over an aimless or idle stroll through the streets when a wandering mood struck her, as one often did. Restlessness dug into her as deeply as fangs anymore; or had, more specifically, for the past three decades or so.

“You’ll hear no complaints from me over it. Wanderlust leads where it wants, where it must,” her companion often said before they kicked off from the curb near their home. “I’ve embraced it myself many times over the years, to be sure, so I have no qualms about following wherever it is it drives you next.”

“Good,” she’d nod, releasing the kickstand. “It’s comforting to know you intend to try and keep up for once, Lance Armstrong. Instead of, you know, tailgating my backside a few tire revolutions away. Like a creep.”

“What can I say? I’m fond of a good chase, especially one with as lovely a view as you.”

“You always were, weren’t you? Fond of chasing me, I mean,” she’d reply with an arched smile, the words soon blurring into an echoed look-back over her shoulder. 

“And I will continue to be,” would come the un-ironic answer from somewhere close behind, “thanks to you.” 

“Thanks to me, Bonnie, and a few Japanese grimoire spells, you mean,” Caroline would correct in that chirpy, heart-of-the-matter way of hers.

“Certainly. Whatever you say.”

Then off they’d jet together without another word: no particular direction or destination in mind.

As it was, kinetic motion made Caroline more comfortable with her place in the world seeing as how she could travel anywhere inside of it. And she longed to see everything now -every town, city, country, continent; each day or night; the kinds of things nobody could dare to forget when one fought to remain aware. Alive.

She yearned to be everywhere and nowhere all at once these days, and cycling, she was. It’s why she loved it so much.

There was something about the feel of pedals flat against her soles, the bikey breeze cooling her skin before it blew tendrils loose onto the nape of her neck, the wheels beneath her spinning, screeching smoothly with speed as they weaved along windy, bus-trafficked roads or twiggy park pathways to gain that rush of adrenaline that clattered her teeth with joy. With freedom. Or maybe it was the way in which her butt bumped up and down on the triangular seat while a midsummer dusk descended with a multilingual hush over boats, which were docked bow-to-stern in the stilled green canals to her left, the day’s end cresting beyond the architectural diadem of the Tower Bridge as she continued her odyssey, then later, peaking atop the hedged copses and lush treetops in St. James’s Park to illuminate a family of ducklings as they paddled through the golden ripples. Or maybe it was how the moonlight reflected off rows of bricked homes in the borough of Bermondsey as her tires crunched gravel and debris to dust without slowing. It was in how everything whizzed by her in an indecipherable rush of buildings, cathedrals, faces, vibrated conversation, smogged tedium and bustle. Alerting her to the blended chaos of it all. Her ears buzzing with the familiar novelty of progression, of diversified populace and soon-to-be-digitized antiquity. 

Caroline was hastened forward through the city, through a still-untapped eternity, by wonder. Diversion. Exploration. Temptation. Love. Each second tickling the hair in her nostrils as it passed before, then behind her.

The moving world around her became an anomalous combination of fast and slow, and the dichotomy thrilled her. It was something she could race alongside or immerse herself in by grasping the handlebar breaks - hopping off her bike with a swing of her leg to trot into a shop, a pub, an outdoor theater; dawdling along the choppy waves of the Thames with this man’s arm wrapped around her waist like it belonged there (and who’s to say it didn’t?) - but also something which she’d never be able to catch fully no matter how hard she tried. And Caroline was okay with that. She didn’t mind.

The truth was she relished a camaraderie with the world no one else besides the man next to her sensed, or understood, so it gave her the luxury to simply _be_. Feel. To open herself up to the unvaried rhythm of time as it carried them around every bend in this labryinth’d metropolis. Allowing her to bask in London’s steady changeability wherever she rode.

Caroline adored the taste of life rolling by her as her legs rounded harder, faster. Muscles burning with exertion. Slickened with sweat beneath her jeans, taut against her hamstrings.

She inhaled with eyes closed, breathing it all in without stopping: all the honking cars and laughter, the alcohol mixed with blood many tourists smelled of as they paused by some monument to snap a few Instagram photos, the clink of the Tube rails, applause within the Globe Theater, multicultural cuisine, fresh cheeses huddled within market stalls for selling, couples of all ages, pints of beer drunk in crowded avenues, the lift of a cyclist’s arm as she signaled to turn right, a full moon tacked to a twilight sky, music, tea and crumpets, a gentleman’s eye lingering on her legs too long to be accidental, the pruned sidewalk trees. Most of all, though, she reveled in Klaus’s easy proximity. His pride and contentment to be here, to be with her still (even if that meant flanking her rear sometimes), was more tangible than the kiss he left on her mouth at the last stoplight in Parliament Sqaure.

“How do you do that?” she said as they waited at the intersection with their foreheads still pressed together.

“Do what, love?” he asked.

“Make me want each new moment we share together to last forever.”

“My kisses are that potent? How lovely. I didn’t realize,” Klaus smirked.

Caroline shoved against his chest playfully, “Cut it out, I’m serious!”

“Say it again then.”

“No.”

“Come on, say it. Say it…please?”

Shaking her head, “You’re such a glutton for flattery, you know that? It’s exhausting. Seriously,” Caroline teased.

“Ah, but only when it comes from you, sweetheart. No one else. And just so we’re clear—” Reaching out with his hand to stroke her cheek then, his expression liquified, his irises gleaming with an affectionate blue blaze she’d come to recognize as hers, and hers alone. Klaus’s voice was deep, so much barer in emotion than he ordinarily liked to betray, “I’d gladly surrender it all to live in one such a moment of forever with you. I could pick but one, were it required. However, I‘m greedy so only if forced,” he added with a languid stroke down her spine.

“As could I, no doubt,” she smiled softly in answer, her lips poised near his ear and her fingers tangled in the necklaces at his throat. “Still, I’m glad we don’t need to choose.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Limitations suck, o'hybrid of mine. They leave us feeling stunted and starving to surpass them.”

“True, too true…”

“Plus, I’d rather have all of time ahead and behind us like we do now,” she said just as the cycle light changed to GO. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Truth be told, love, I just want us. This. _You_.” With a thumb hooked through one of her belt loops, Klaus shrugged while Caroline listened, “To hell with all the rest,” he said.

“And you’ll have me, okay? You absolutely will. I know it.” 

“How?”

“Because we happen to have forever, you and I. We won back time, we got a second chance to sample everything the world still has to offer,” Caroline said with meaning before she leaned in to kiss him. “And there’s nobody dead or alive I’d rather spend it with…than you.”

After drawing away from his mouth then and settling herself onto her bike once more with a turn of the pedals, Caroline giggled because Big Ben cut in with its midnight song from Elizabeth Tower right as they disappeared back into the London night in unison, the clock hands illuminated almost in omen, or like a reminder gilded in moments that rang out with the words _don’t waste me, don’t waste me._ Which they didn’t, and never could again.

In fact, if the chimes of the near-death past had taught these two lovers anything, it was that they needed to chase and cherish every year, day, hour, minute, and second of eternity they were gifted because it wasn’t a given in this life no matter how “unkillable” or White-Oak-stake-prone one pertained to be. So chase and cherish is what Klaus and Caroline did. It’s how they chose to spend their passionate, nomadic existence for however long it coiled forward into the future.  They loved it minute-by-minute, chime-after-chime… 

Together.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I posted at this juncture, but I've been tweaking this for almost two weeks, and at a certain point you have to let a story or an idea go. Thoughts? Comments are lovely.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
